Brussels, Belgium – On Thursday, the European Union and China will hold a top-level summit in Beijing to remember 50 years of diplomatic ties just before the summer lull begins.
The mood before the meeting on Thursday, however, has not been particularly celebratory but, rather, tense with low expectations for any concrete bilateral deals. Beijing earlier this month reduced the summit’s two-day schedule to a single day’s event, citing domestic factors.
A series of trade disagreements, particularly over market access and critical rare earth elements, and geopolitical tensions, primarily Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, have marred EU-China relations.
The EU’s relationship with China is complex, according to Gunnar Wiegand, who was previously the European External Action Service’s (EEAS) managing director for Asia and the Pacific and is a distinguished fellow at the German Marshall Fund’s Brussels Office’s Indo-Pacific Program.
“The EU views China as a partner for global challenges, an economic competitor when it comes to developing new technologies and also a systemic rival because of Beijing’s governance system and its influence on global affairs”, he said, adding that the question of whether China is also a threat to European security has come up over the last few years in the context of Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.
Who is present at the summit?
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa will visit China on Thursday, seeking to address these disputes at the summit.
“This Summit is a chance for us to speak directly with China and engage in honest, constructive discussions on issues that both of us care about.” We want dialogue, real engagement and concrete progress”, Costa said in a statement in advance of the summit.
Premier Li Qiang will co-chair the 25th summit between the two parties, according to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday morning.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson added that after 50 years of EU-China development, their ties “can cope with the changing difficulties and challenges”.
Is there a plan to fight Russia in Ukraine?
According to EU officials, discussions with President Xi on Thursday morning will focus on global affairs and bilateral relations, followed by a banquet lunch.
However, Beijing’s close ties to Moscow, which have been a thorny issue for Brussels, are likely to cause the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
“You can expect the EU addressing Russia’s war in Ukraine”, a senior EU official told reporters in Brussels on July 18. China, of course, frequently addresses our pressing issues. Well, this is a core issue for Europe. The official continued, “It’s a fundamental issue for European security.”
In an address to the European Parliament earlier this month, von der Leyen also accused China of “de facto enabling Russia’s war economy”.
For the first time in a long time, Brussels has sanctioned a number of Chinese businesses for facilitating the supply of goods used for Russian weapons production. On July 18, the EU also imposed sanctions on Chinese banks for allegedly financing the supply of such goods.
China has rejected such accusations and warned of retaliations. Beijing has also reiterated that “negotiation, ceasefire, and peace” are the key components of its position on the Ukraine conflict.
But according to an article by the South China Morning Post, during a meeting with the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, in early July, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing did not want to see Russia lose the war in Ukraine, since the United States would then focus on China.
Wiegand argued that no illusions should exist in Europe.
“For China, having good and close relations with Russia is of utmost importance to increase its own strength in the global context. He declared, “They won’t sacrifice this relationship.”
“This is the most important negative factor which has impacted the overall]EU-China] relationship”, he added.
According to EU officials in Brussels, the 27-member bloc will discuss tensions in the Middle East and other security concerns in Asia in addition to the conflict in Ukraine.
How difficult will trade discussions be?
Trade is another contentious issue between Beijing and Brussels. This is likely to be central to the summit’s agenda in the afternoon with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, followed by a dinner, EU officials involved in planning the summit told reporters in Brussels on July 18.
China and Beijing, the third-largest trading partner of the EU, have recently been at odds with one another over a number of trade issues, including Beijing’s control of rare earth minerals, which are essential for chip-making and the production of medical devices.
In her speech at the European Parliament earlier this month, von der Leyen accused Beijing of “flooding global markets with subsidised overcapacity – not just to boost its own industries, but to choke international competition”.
By 2024, the EU’s trade deficit with China was more than 300 billion euros ($352 billion). EU exports to China amounted to 213 billion euros ($250bn), while EU imports from China amounted to 519 billion euros ($609bn), according to figures from the European Commission.
According to EU officials, Chinese businesses are gaining from massive government subsidies, and cheap Chinese goods like EVs are instead being shipped to the EU as a result of the region’s slow domestic demand.
To protect European interests, Brussels has begun taking action and imposed tariffs of up to 45 percent on Chinese EVs last October. After realizing that European companies were not being given access to Chinese markets, the bloc also prohibited Chinese companies from entering medical device tenders in June, among other trade restrictions.
The EU is also concerned about Beijing’s export controls on rare earth minerals.
Von der Leyen blasted China of “blackmail” at the Group of Seven summit in Canada in June, saying that “no single country should control 80 to 90% of the market for essential raw materials and downstream products like magnets.”
“The present situation is not sustainable. China benefits from our open market but purchases too little, a senior EU official told reporters in Brussels before the summit. “We need to rebalance.” “Trade access is limited and export controls are excessive. We’ll approach Beijing with a positive and constructive attitude, but China must acknowledge our concerns.
In her speech at the European Parliament in July, the European Commission president said the 27-member bloc is “engaging with Beijing so that it loosens its export restrictions” on rare earth minerals.
Wiegand claimed that while trade negotiations are ongoing, it seems unlikely to be possible to reach a deal at the summit this week.
“There is a constructive tone]from the EU] when it comes to ‘ de-risking’, not ‘ de-coupling ‘ from China. However, the term “de-risking” is not popular among the Chinese. They think it is disinformation. He claimed that the goal is merely to diversify and enhance our own capacities in order to reduce trade risks.
How does China view trading relations with the EU?
According to the Foreign Ministry, China wants an “emotional and prejudice-free” view of their trading partnership with the EU.
He Yongqian, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, told a news conference in Beijing on Monday that China hopes that Brussels will also “be less protectionist, and be more open”.
The Chinese Chamber of Commerce to the EU (CCCEU) expressed hope that the summit will “address crucial challenges, including market and investment barriers, faced by Chinese companies in the EU,” in an email to Al Jazeera prior to the forum.
“Recent EU measures, such as the Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) and International Procurement Instrument (IPI), have disproportionately impacted Chinese firms in clean tech, high-tech, and medical devices. We advocate fair treatment through a dialogic approach, according to CCCEU.
Will human rights be discussed at the summit?
Human rights-related relations between the EU and China have also been iffy. In 2021, Brussels slapped sanctions on Chinese officials over reported human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region.
Beijing refrained from retaliating by imposing sanctions on EU lawmakers, rejecting these claims. The tit-for-tat sanctions were accompanied by a halt in bilateral dialogues between the European Parliament and the National People’s Congress (NPC) of China.
There is “little to celebrate” in China when it comes to talking about human rights in 2025, according to Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s director for China.
“Amnesty International has regularly documented serious and widespread human rights violations, from arbitrary detention and persecution in the Uighur region, for which no official has been held to account, to assaults on the rule of law and the chipping away of civil and political freedoms in Hong Kong, despite international treaties guaranteeing those rights, to the systematic use of national security legislation to target rights defence and criticism, at home and increasingly abroad. According to her, the EU has also come to similar conclusions, at least on paper.
“At the summit, the EU’s leadership needs to ensure that those words become action and use every tool at their disposal to create positive human rights change for people – not more empty promises at the negotiating table or the speaker’s podium”, she added.
The 2021 EU sanctions are still in place despite China lifting some of its sanctions in April of this year and making moves to resume political dialogue between the NPC and the European Parliament. The bloc said last week that it had “not observed changes in the human rights situation in China/Xinjiang”.
The EU values the promotion and protection of human rights. We will raise the EU’s concern on the deterioration of rights in Xinjiang, Tibet, and other regions”, an EU official said.
Will there be a question of US tariffs?
The meeting between the EU and China comes amid US President Donald Trump’s global tariff war, which both Brussels and Beijing are trying to navigate.
Brussels has been pursuing trade negotiations with Washington in an effort to reach a trade deal, and Trump has announced that it will start imposing a 30% tariff on imported goods from the EU on August 1.
China and the US agreed to slash tit-for-tat heavy tariffs for 90 days in May. That suspension expires on August 12. In June, the US said it would impose 55 percent tariffs on Chinese goods, down from the 145 percent Trump had imposed in April. Beijing announced that it would impose a 10% tariff on US imports, compared to a 125 percent tariff. But trade negotiations are ongoing.
Some analysts in Brussels made the tidbit of earlier this year that tariff tensions with Washington might boost trade between Brussels and Beijing.
The CCCEU also told Al Jazeera that with US tariffs looming, “China and the EU share a responsibility to uphold free trade and multilateralism while mitigating external pressures” and pushed Brussels to improve its business environment for foreign companies and enhance supply chains.
Expectations are still low in the weeks leading up to the summit, though.
“It is quite clear the US tariff issue is an over-encompassing issue … we are negotiating with the US at present. Due to the impact of US tariffs, it is obvious that other actors need to be located and engaged with them globally, a senior EU official told reporters in Brussels prior to the summit.
“But with China, we are certainly not agreeing to compromise on our values”, the official stressed.
Because they are NATO allies, Wiegand also pointed out that the US and China have a stronger economic relationship.
“With Russia’s war in Ukraine threatening Europe, Brussels will not be pushed closer to Beijing”, he said.
